Thanks to Democracy and Barbarity!!

Though i have not much regard for vicarious communication mediums like chats and emails, i think they are a fascinating place to be. Today my Gtalk message was: first, "the contours of the chasm between Assamese subnationalism and pan-Indianism." second, a little more subversive and callous probally, "the whole concept of India is a big joke, a shameful failure". But im angry, have been angry and agitated since the Dispur incident on Saturday. I have to write something about it to let out that anger. But for the moment, this is what a right wing friend mailed on redaing my Gtalk status message.

I read ur anti-india status msg and i think it was really shameful on ur part

today u want assam to be 'freed' from India but does assam really desrve it....

\http://www.ibnlive.com/news/guwahati-residents-strip-beat-up-adivasi-women/53043-3.html

and whr will that end tommow u may ask guwahati to be a free state and then someone would come around

and say that pan bazar shud be an independent country

I wrote back just now in a rush, while shuttling between the edit table (am working on a documentary on migration and labour equations in Central Asia after the break up on the USSR) and my comp. I know what i will paste here might sound rash and hurried but whatever it is, it is definitely not fabricated.

hi u,

well, im not ashamed of how i feel and what i say though i might not be licensed to say that. and talking about all the stuff from mainland India is all fine and you dont really have to send me an IBN live url to check what is going on in Assam. i have been and will be actively a part of the developments of the shameful horrendous mob riot that took place near Dispur (the administrative capital of Assam) in broad daylight. Im ashamed as an Assamese and very agitated. A curfew was announced in many areas following the riot. But that same eve at 7.30 pm we called a meeting, Assamese civil society representatives if u please (though i still feel that a couple of NGOs, intellectuals and indigenous groups donot represent any civil society unless the people proactively take a step) and passed a resolution around 9. 30pm./ we have seen how the national and local media have portrayed the whole incident giving it hues and images of various orders, and instead of controlling the situation, giving fire to this delicate symbiotic relationship between the tea garden workers and the other people. and yes what happened that day was essentially a class thing. what the local residents did was try to suppress an identity that is as much part of Assam as anything else. and now the Jharkhand govt is trying to gain political mileage outta it. So there, am not throwing dirt at India (anti India msg u said). i hold myself responsible for the sorry state of our nation as well as my fellow citizens. and like i said, you donot know the politics of the Northeast. anyways, the Centre is busy trying to convince everyone that we r a homogenous species. and man, we r amazingly heterogenous. so the idea of a nation state is something that needs to be studied and critiqued. a federation mite b an alternative. i am not too sure. m not talking of independence without the shite that goes along with it. but i am saying, it's time we started discussing alternatives!

I hope you understand me a lil better now.

and i will probably write something on the incident coz only than this anger will subside, this helpless feeling swelling inside me. i heard that phrase twice the other day from eye witnesses "ppl killed each other like cats and dogs". wow. all for violence are we?! there's Modi in Gujarat savagely eliminating an entire breed of people, there's bomb blasts in UP coz nobody cares, Nazification of this country had long begun. the crevices are just starting to get wider.

Take care and think about it.

Fate-igued!

These last three months or so have been a whirlwind of insane activity, people, work, travel and herbs that elevate the less mundane waking hours. This last one week I decided to grace my shack with my solitude and OCD. There has been conflict. And very many contradictions. Lately, I have felt pulled to the very last vestiges of my "sheer energy" by folks and peers. I maintain it all very well, most of the time. But sometimes a voice inside talks to me (am i schizo?) and tells me to go away, far far away. And take it from there. Tiredness is a state of mind, I presume, if you dont add the physical drudgery and the constant swirling white noise in the brain. But than I get emotionally haggard at times and than familiarity has this twisted way of revealing new things, trying to precede what lies in the vague future. Astrologers and tarot card readers act a savvy catalyst to all wanting to hear and evade the impediments set by Fate (harrowed fate that!). And we become mere puppets in this orgasmic understanding of divinity's ways! haha
Man, if i start on those lines now, i can possibly go on for an hour, applying logic and common sense to wallet-pinching astronomically priced gem stones.

I am half mad, so they say. Now, who are these "they"? I probally dont even know how they look like or what their last names are. But am i irreverant to speak thus, about divinity's camouflaged way! (Hats off to Divinity and the sundry rituals that go along with the whol brouhaha).

AS for me, I guess surviving is an art i have learnt the hard way but learnt it proper. And if my fate decides to play spoilsport, i will play along and probally let all things take their own time to reveal their worth to me.

There is conflict, contradiction but there is also endurance and beauty!

So long than.